Despite the passage of 450 years since the Spanish conquest, a
large percentage of the population continues to speak various
Mayan Indian languages. In 1940, the Guatemalan census reported
that 68% of the population were Indians. But, in 1973, the
census showed a drop to only 44%. However, most scholars
consider that figure to be too low (Suarez, 1983). Usual figures
given for the current Indian population are in the range of 50-
55% (del Aguila, 1987; Simon, 1987; Stewart, 1981, 1984; Suarez,
1983).
Linguistically, these Indians speak a large number of languages
and dialects, although there is some slight disagreement as to
precise numbers. Figures include twenty languages with seventy
dialects (Stewart, 1981), twenty-three languages with over one
hundred dialects (del Aguila, 1987), twenty-two languages (Simon,
1987), and twenty-four to thirty languages (Britnall, 1977).
However, the languages are related and are similar in vocabulary
and grammar. While the differances between languages are enough
to make them mutually unintelligible, the differance between
dialects is usually small (Britnall, 1977).
The Indians are usually divided into major and minor languages,
depending on the number of speakers. There are four major
languages; Quiche with 520,000 speakers and fourteen
dialects, Mam with 321,000 speakers and fifteen dialects,
Cakchiquel with 271,000 speakers and twelve dialects, and
Kekchi with 209,000 speakers (Stewart, 1981). Minor
languages, which range from the nearly extinct to 60,000
speakers, include Pocomchi, Ixil, Kanjobel,
Tzutujil, Pocomam, and Chorti (Stewart,
1981)
Once the sociolinguistic situation in the country has been
established, Guatemalan radio broadcasting will be viewed, in
light of those facts. An attempt will then be made to put the
sociolinguistic aspects of Guatemalan radiobroadcasting into
perspective. To do this, the sociolinguistics, language
planning, and radio broadcasting in two other Latin American
countries with significant Indian populations, Peru and Bolivia,
will be briefly examined and compared with Guatemala.
Sixteenth century Spain was one of the first countries in the
world to establish official policies to deal with a multilingual
situation. Under the Inquisition, the government saw a need to
integrate Moslems and Jews into Spanish culture. The response
was to promote the use of Spanish so as to eradicate Arabic and
Judeo-Spanish within their borders. The Spanish government
extended this policy to its new colonies in the Western
Hemisphere. Teaching the Indians Spanish and discouraging the
use of Indian languages was seen as an effective way to integrate
the Indians into the empire and the Catholic religion (Suarez,
1983). In Guatemala, at least, not only did the crown want the
Indians to learn Spanish, but the Indians wanted to learn Spanish
as well (Hawkins, 1984).
Guatemala was one of several colonies where the crown's language
policy was not carried out. The local Catholic clergy felt that
it would be better to convert the Indians in their own languages.
If the Indians did not understand Spanish, it would cut down
outside influences, and make the Indians dependent on bilingual
priests in dealings with the government (Hawkins, 1984; Suarez,
1983). Part of the priest's linguistic work can be seen in their
adding the names of Catholic saints to Indian town names. For
example, Nebaj was renamed Santa Maria Nebaj, and Chajul renamed
San Gaspar Chajul (Simon, 1987). Still, it was difficult for the
priests with so many Indian languages to learn, and there was
much confusion during the early days (Suarez, 1983).
The priests' policy of not teaching the Indians Spanish was
supported by the local Spanish elite, who economically exploited
the Indians. "The colony needed a labor source that was
freely available and divided internally, exactly the condition
enhanced by multiple Indian languages" (Hawkins, 1984, 44).
Stewart adds that after the conquest, the Mayans "were
integrated into stable state-level peasant agricultural
societies, a factor which may have been a crucial one in aiding
them to resist the onslaught of the Europeans better than other
native Americans" (Stewart, 1984. 22). Still, "an
indeterminate number of Indian languages became extinct as a
consequence of the conquest" (Suarez, 1983, 163).
Through the centuries after the conquest, the Guatemalan
highlands remained isolated from outside influence due to the
rough mountainous topography of the area (Carmack, 1988; Simon,
1987). Thus the Indian life style, including language use was
little affected or change by outside cultural influences (Simon,
1987).
In addition to holding on to their languages, Guatemalan Indians
have continued to wear their traditional everyday costumes.
Guatemalan Indians are well known today for the skill of their
weaving and their masterful way of combining bright colors in
their clothing. The Indians' colorful clothing is an important
part of their culture today. Different towns and regions have
their own particular designs which immediately identify not only
what language group the wearer belongs to, but also specifically
where the wearer comes from. However, Indian clothing is not
quite as traditional as it would first appear. The different
designs - over two hundred of them - were introduced by the
Spanish colonizers as a way of keeping track of which village or
town a peasant belonged to (Simon, 1987).
The differance between the Indians and Ladinos is accentuated by
a high level of monolingualism among the Indians.
"Monolingualism ranges from a high of perhaps ninety percent
in the Kekchi area to an almost complete bilingualism in Chorti,
but monolingualism may reach an average of fifty percent for all
languages" (Stewart, 1981, 6-7). Among those Indians
considered to be bilingual, knowledge of Spanish varies greatly,
with many knowing "little more than the vocabulary necessary
to buy and sell in the marketplace" (Stewart, 1981, 7).
Britnall notes that while "almost all Indians know greetings
and some numbers, . . . only a handful are competent enough to
speak on the level of a newspaper article" (Britnall, 1977,
62). Furthermore
Britnall points out the existence of a "self-reinforcing
system of social and cultural domination by the Ladinos"
where
Through the present day, Indians are spoken to paternalistically
with the informal tu or vos, regardless of their
age or social position. In addition, they are commonly refered
to with deregatory or demeaning expressions (Britnall, 1977).
"It is not unusual for (Ladino) Guatemalans to use
expressions such as "no seas indio" ('don't be an
Indian') or "es mas estupido que un indio" ('he's dumber
than an Indian')" (Simon, 1987, 59). "In general,
Ladinos treat Indians in a curt and rude fashion. In
stores Indians are generally served only after all Ladino
customers have been served" (Britnall, 1977, 19). The
Indians, at least among themselves, reciprocate by calling the
Ladinos dogs or vultures (Britnall, 1977).
The Ladino attitude towards Indians and themselves was
perhaps best summed up in the 1923 thesis of Guatemala Miguel
Angel Asturias, who considered the Indian problem a
"disease", and called for extensive European immigration
as a cure.
By no means, however, should it be thought that the Guatemalan
Ladinos are alone in considering the Indians unimportant and
uncapable of significant accomplishments. For example, in his
time, John Gunther was the United States' foremost author about
other countries, their politics and cultures. Yet in his 1941
book, Inside Latin America he mentions Indians in just one
sentence of the eight-and-a-half page chapter on Guatemala.
All this spells out a very dismal situation for the Guatemalan
Indians. Yet, it's only been in the last decade that abuse of
the Indian population has reached all time highs, due to an
ongoing guerilla war in the Indian highlands. Guerilla warfare
started in the 1960s when leftwing Ladino college students
took to the mountains to fight the country's rightwing military
government. At first this was a Ladino war, but beginning
in 1974 large numbers of Indians began to join the EGP (Guerilla
Army of the Poor). By the late 1970s, ninety percent of the
guerillas were Indians, although the leadership remained mainly
Ladino (Simon, 1987).
As the war heated up, the Guatemalan army saw no need to spare
the Indians in their search for guerillas, as tens of thousands
of Indians were killed and entire villages destroyed (Simon,
1987). Roman Catholic Monsignor Juan Pablo Urizar "stated
that 20,000 Indians had been killed in the Quiche area alone in
the 1980s" (Simon, 1987, 193). Over a million peasants were
incorporated into a civil patrol system and 70,000 relocated to
military run "model villages". Indian women from
controversial areas have begun abandoning their traditional dress
in favor of western dress, or the costume of a non-controversial
town. Both men and women have found that "hesitancy to give
an answer during an army interrogation could brand one as a
'subversive'", even if the reason is simply lack of fluency
in Spanish. Subversives are frequently shot (Simon, 1987, 84).
All told, the war "has probably done as much to alter Indian
life as the Spanish conquest and its aftermath in four
centuries" (Simon, 1987, 15).
In spite of the problem of widespread Indian illiteracy and
monolingualism, the Guatemalan government has largely ignored the
issue of language planning. What steps have been taken can be
termed minimal at best.
Official language planning started in Guatemala in 1945 with the
creation of the Instituto Indigenista Nacional (IIN),
which had the job of studying "the situation of the Indian in
Guatemala with a view towards incorporating him into the national
life (Stewart, 1984, 25). However, since the government was
"determined to produce a Spanish speaking population" it
followed a policy of trying to teach Spanish to the Indians in
Spanish with very little success (Stewart, 1984, 25). Indeed,
the IIN's greatest success was probably the publication of
alphabets for the four main Mayan languages (Stewart, 1984).
In 1964 the Promotores Bilingues program was established
as a way to prepare Indian children for Spanish language
classrooms. This involved the hiring of bilingual Indians with a
sixth grade education to
A slightly expanded version of the Promotores Bilingues
program began in 1980. Under the preprimary program there had
been occasions when once students had finished the program, there
was no first grade teacher in the community for them to continue
their education with. In these cases the bilingual promotors
frequently took over and taught the children first grade, and
sometimes second and third grade as well. Because of the
successes of this informal extension of the program, a decision
was made to expand Promotores Bilingues to include
bilingual education for the first three years of schooling for
children of the four main Indian language groups, Quiche, Mam,
Cakchiquel, and Kekchi. Again, the funding came largely from U.S.
foreign aid, and again, the "project has an assimilation
orientation (and) its goal is to produce literate speakers of
Spanish and not to maintain or promote Indian languages"
(Stewart, 1981, 7).
Thus, offical language planning in Guatemala has been minimal and
completely aimed at incorporating the Indians into Guatemalan
society by teaching them Spanish. However, there has been very
little success (Herrera, 1986, 606). Moreover, "there is no
single language policy in the country at either public or private
levels; there are several. In the public sector there is a lack
of knowledge and understanding in this area. Private entities
work better than the public ones in this area" (Tujab, 1987b,
536).
The specific private entities that have been involved in language
issues in Guatemala are the Roman Catholic Church, and evangelist
missionaries, frequently associated with the Summer Institute
for Linguistics. A goal of the Catholic church everywhere is
the creation of an indigenous clergy (Britnall, 1977). Also
beginning in the 1960s, the Catholic church began to establish
peasant leagues, espcially through Catholic Action (Simon, 1987).
The evangelist missionaries, on the other hand, believe that all
good Christians should read the Bible. However, rather
than teach natives a language the Bible is already written
in, they have decided it would be better to translate the
Bible into the native langugages. This, however, requires
that the natives be literate in their own language - otherwise
they wouldn't be able to read the translated Bible
(Stewart, 1984).
The result was that both the Catholic and evangelist Protestant
churches began establishing and producing materials for bilingual
rural schools for the Indians. For example, by 1964 the SIL had
developed primers in six languages (Stewart, 1981). Soon,
Bilingualism and literacy, brought about by the Catholic and
Protestant evangelist churches lead to greater political and
economic independence for the Indians (Britnall, 1977). However,
"the intrusion of Indians into the political process on both a
national and a local level brought about conflict, primarily in
the rural areas, with Ladinos" (Peterson, 1968, 81). In
the evangelist churches, as the foreign missionaries learned the
Indian languages, and the Indians became literate, Ladinos
were given less important roles in the church, sometimes leading
them to found their own sects (Britnall, 1977).
It was the work of the Catholic church with establishing peasant
leagues and working for social reform that caused the most
reform. By the early 1980s, the Guatemalan government began to
see the Catholic church's work with the Indian peasants as
subversive. Catholic priests, nuns, and layworkers often
"disappeared" in political killings. Such atrocities
were not restricted to the Catholic church, however. At one
point three US AID trained bilingual teachers disappeared; two
were later found dead, the third never found (Simon, 1987).
As a result of the Ladinos' negative attitude towards the
Indians, the Guatemalan government has made little effort towards
language planning or educating the Indians. The goal of what
little effort it has made has always been the integration of the
Indians into Ladino-Spanish culture, and the Indians' abandonment
of their own culture. However, for their own reasons, the
Catholic and Protestant evangelist churches have established
their own bilingual education programs for the Indians. Their
efforts have led to improved economic and political conditions
for the Indians, but have met stiff resistance from the dominant
Ladino elite, especially in the case of the Catholic
church.
It is difficult to say what the future will bring to the
Guatemalan linguistic scene. Stewart notes that Guatemala's
"bi-ethnic situation, in which language is an important
ethnic marker, is fairly stable and might be expected to continue
indefinitely, if political, economic, and social factors were to
permit it" (Stewart, 1984, 22). Because of the political
factor, Simon wonders "if the culture the Mayans have
sustained since the sixteenth century will endure even fifty more
years" (Simon, 1987, 15).
The question of whether or not Guatemala's Indian languages are
doomed to extinction by hispanization is an interesting one.
Haugen notes that "it is not so much that the languages
spread as that changing social circumstances lead the users of
the languages to shift orientation (Haugen, 1987, 51). In short,
the users of a language find it more beneficial to use another
language.
Examples of both types of language spread/extinction can be seen
in Guatemala today with some of the lesser languages. Four
languages considered by Tujab as on the road to extinction; -
Itza, Pocomam, Xinca, and Tectiteco;
-- (Tujab, 1987a) clearly fall into the changing social
circumstances frame.
The Itza language of the northern Peten region,
Pocomam of eastern Jalapa department, and Xinca of
southeastern Santa Rosa department are similar in that each is an
isolated island surrounded by Spanish speakers, unlike most
Guatemalan Indian languages, which are clustered in the western
part of the country. Presumably the speakers of these languages
have found Spanish so necessary in their everyday life, that it
contributes to the decline of their own languages. Xinca,
in fact, is on the very brink of extinction with only six elderly
speakers left as of 1987. Tujab notes that even they normally
communicate among themselves in Spanish (Tujab, 1987a).
Chorti, spoken in eastern Chiquimula department, is also
an isolated linguistic island. Although Chorti is not on Tujab's
extinction list, its speakers are almost totally bilingual
in Spanish (Stewart, 1981).
The fourth example of the social circumstances frame is
Tectiteco, spoken along the Mexican border in Western
Guatemala. Unlike the others mentioned above, Teciteco is
not surrounded by Spanish speakers, but rather by Mam
Indians. However, because many of them migrate to Mexico for
seasonal labor, they find Spanish useful and no longer value
their own language (Tujab, 1987a).
Spread of a larger language also has contributed towards the
extinction of some of the lesser Indian languages. However, it
was not Spanish at fault here, but rather the major Indian
languages of Quiche and Kekchi. The Kekchi
have been moving north into the Peten, and encroaching on the
territory of the Mopan Maya (Semanario de Integracion
Social Guatemalteca, 1964; Tujab, 1987). Similarly the
Quiche have started to move into the territories of the
Uspantecan and Aguacatecan Indians (Semanario de
Integracion Social Guatemalteca, 1964; Britnall, 1977).
Considering all the factors, I believe Simon's fear of extinction
within fifty years is unjustified, unless the army literally does
kill off all the Indians. However, it is probable that within
fifty years several more of the less spoken languages will follow
Xinca to extinction. The four major languages, and some
of the smaller ones most isolated from Spanish speakers, should
continue to survive, at least for a few generations.
Their long term survival is, however, dependent on their being
given some degree of status in Guatemalan society. Due to the
number of Indian languages, no one could be given official status
alongside Spanish, as for example has been done in Paraguay with
Guarani. Spanish would have to remain the national
language which all citizens learn, and which ties all groups
together in a multilingual setting.
Herrera suggests just that in calling for the officialization of
regional languages that would be equal to Spanish within their
particular region. Spanish, though, would remain the official
language for affairs between regions (Herrera, 1986). However,
having extensively traveled in and read about Guatemala, I have a
difficult time imagining language planning which accepts the
legitimacy of Indian languages coming about any time soon.
Part Two: Language and Radio
Broadcasting in Guatemala
The above article is copyright 1989 by Don Moore.
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THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF GUATEMALAN INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES
AND THE EFFECT ON RADIO BROADCASTING.
By Don Moore
INTRODUCTION
The Central American country of Guatemala is one of the most
linguistically diverse in the world, and certainly the most
diverse in the Western Hemisphere. Five hundred years ago,
Guatemala was ruled by the Mayas. Actually, there was no Mayan
empire, but rather a loose collection of city-states, each with
its own language. In 1523 the Spanish showed up. Within twenty
years they had conquered most of the country, although a few
remote pockets held out into the 1600s. 
The purpose of this paper is to look at Guatemala from a
sociolinguistic perspective, with special attention as to how the
sociolinguistic situation is reflected in the country's radio
broadcasting. This will be accomplished by dividing the paper
into two distinct chapters, dealing with the sociolinguistic
situation and its manifestation in radio broadcasting,
respectively. The first chapter will begin with a discussion of
the preservation of the Indian languages of Guatemala from an
historical viewpoint. Next, the role of Indians in Guatemalan
society and their relation with the politically dominant
ladinos, or Spanish speakers, will be discussed, with an
emphasis on language. Finally, the recent history and state of
language planning in Guatemala will be examined. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
That the Mayan Indians in Guatemala have been able to hold on to
their languages and culture despite 450 years of Spanish
domination is remarkable. However, at least initially this was
not totally the Indians doing. THE ETHNOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT
The first key to the complex world of Guatemalan sociolinguistics
is the difference between Indian and Ladino. The distinction
between the two races is not based on bloodlines. In fact,
almost all ladinos have some Indian blood, and some are
completely descended from Indians. Ladinos can, and often
do, physically look like Indians, but they will not be considered
as Indians (Britnall, 1977). Instead, "what matters in
distinguishing Indian from Ladino is immediate descent and
cultural characteristics such as language and dress"
(Britnall, 1977. 20). In terms of outward appearance, language
and traditional dress are the two key factors. Even dress is not
an absolute determinate, as although almost all Indian women
continue to wear their colorful clothing, a large percentage of
men have adopted modern westernized dress (Burgess, 1966; Simon,
1987). This leads to a situation where, in determining who
belongs to which ethnic group, "the sociological term is in
part a linguistic index" (Diebold, 1962, 27). Indian men are more likely to be bilingual in Spanish
than Indian women; younger men are more so than older men; few
Indians, on the other hand, are bilingual in another Indian
language, and few Ladinos . . . are bilingual in the Indian
language. Finally the trend seems to be towards greater
bilingualism among Indians and more monolingualism among Ladinos
(Britnall, 1977, 63).
As the principal differances between the two groups are language
and dress, an Indian can move upward socially to the
Ladino class by learning Spanish and adopting Western
style dress (Britnall, 1977; Diebold, 1962). However, "it is
generally recognized that it is impossible for an Indian to
ladinoize without leaving the community where he was born and
raised." (Britnall, 21) As a result, Indians who learn
Spanish and ladinoize move to the larger towns and cities, and
their villages remain largely monolingual (Diebold, 1962). RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INDIANS AND LADINOS
Curiously, the word ladino was originally a derogatory
term the Spanish elite had for an Indian who learned Spanish
(Hawkins, 1984). However, over the centuries, the Ladinos
turned that knowledge of Spanish into their means of taking
control of the country and its Indian population. The source of
Ladino dominance and Indian servility is that Indians are
not competent in the national language, and only the
Ladino has had access to a school education (Stewart,
1981). This is in part aided by demographics; although sixty to
seventy percent of Guatemalans live in rural areas, ninety
percent of those in rural areas are Indians (del Aguila, 1987).
For example, the department of Huehuetenango is over two-thirds
Indian, but ninety-eight percent of the departmental capital's
population is Ladino (Britnall, 1977).Ladinos were automatically in contact with the larger
Guatemalan society through their competence in the national
language and customs . . . Indian ignorance of the national
language and culture was guaranteed through the social
segregation of the two groups which was manifested in the Ladino
avoidance of friendhsips and mixed marraiges with Indians, and
through an effective Ladino monopoly on local 'public'
education (Britnall, 1977, 173).
Considering themselves superior to the Indians, the Ladinos
demean, exploit and abuse the Indians in whatever manner they
feel like. During the dictatorial regime of General Jorge Ubico,
from 1930-1945, Indians were treated especially harshly; "they
(the Indians) feared commands in Spanish that they might not
understand" as that would lead to beatings (Britnall, 1977,
103). The Indian represents a past civilization and the
meztizo, or ladino as we call him, a future civilization. The
Indian . . . lost his vigor during the long period of slavery to
which he was subjected . . . He represents the mental, moral, and
material dearth of the country . . . (The Ladino) aspires,
desires, and is, in the final analysis, the vital part
of the Guatemalan nation. What a nation, where two
thirds of its population are dead to intelligent life!
. . . Among the gross errors that were committed
(during the Spanish conquest) was the desire that
rudimentary Indian intelligence immediately assimilate
the civilization of a nation that at that time was the
most advanced in Europe. . . For the Indian, the
Independence period represented a change of master and
nothing else (Asturias, 1923, 65-73).
Asturias later won the 1967 Nobel Prize for Literature, after
greatly moderating his views. EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE PLANNING IN GUATEMALA
In Guatemala the official language is Spanish, and it is
recognized as the habitual and legal means for all aspects of
civil life (Herrara, 1986, 606). One result of this is that
schooling is in Spanish, effectively disenfranchising most Indian
children from an education. Guatemala has one of the highest
illiteracy rates in the Western Hemisphere -around sixty percent,
largely Indian peasants (del Aguila, 1987; Stewart, 1981), with
an average education level of 1.28 grades (del Aguila, 1987).
Most Indian children who start school soon find that they can't
understand anything the teacher says and soon drop out (Stewart,
1981). In the mean time, they are ridiculed for their ignorance
by the Ladino children (Britnall, 1977). Not surprisingly, over
50% of Indian children never enroll in school, and only 1%
of those who do enroll complete the 6th grade. (del Aguila,
1987).work with pre-school children to teach them minimal
literacy in their own Mayan language, spoken Spanish, and finally
some minimal literacy in Spanish. The 'graduates' of the
Promotores Bilingues program (then) enter first grade, which is
taught in Spanish by a regular primary school teacher, who in
Guatemala must be a high school graduate (Stewart, 1984,
28).
Although the program has had some success, it must be noted that
its intent is to integrate Indian children into Ladino
society. There is no effort or interest in the project in
maintaining the Indian languages; they are simply used as a
bridge to Spanish. Even in this, the Guatemalan government has
shown very little interest, in that most of the funding has come
from U.S. foreign aid (Britnall, 1977; Stewart, 1984). greater education contributed to the growing Indian
pride and sense of independence from the Ladino . . . (Those) who
did not know how to read or write feel great pride in their
bilingual and literate children . . . Ladinos (became) less
important as mediators between the national and local culture.
Newspapers, laws, legal documents, radio broadcasts, books -
nearly all of which are in Spanish - are no longer an exclusively
Ladino domain (Britnall, 1977, 153-4).
A particular success of the Catholic church has been the
Proyecto Linguistico Francisco Marroquin (PLFM), which was
eventually handed over to the Indians. The organization develops
bilingual dictionaries and other educational materials in the
various Indian languages and dialects. The project pays for
itself by running a Spanish school for foreigners, including the
US Peace Corps (Stewart, 1981, 1984). SUMMARY
As has been seen, Guatemala is a multilingual country, with
approximately half its population monolingual in the dominant
language of Spanish, and the other half speaking Indian languges
for their mother tongue, with about half of those monolingual.
For various historical reasons, the Mayans have "been
successful in maintaining an ethnic identity separate from that
of the ladinos". (Stewart, 1984 22). However, often that
separate ethnic identity is largely manifested in the language
differance.
Economically and politically the Spanish-speaking Ladinos
are dominant over the Mayan Indians. In addition, the
Ladinos have highly prejudicial and demeaning attitudes
towards Indians. These attitudes are at least partly responsible
for the killings of thousands of Indians in the civil war, and
perhaps the greatest threat yet to the Indians' survival. CONCLUSIONS
The sociolinguistic situation in Guatemala is clearly one of
vertical bilingualism, defined as one language (Spanish) being
socially, politically, and economically dominant over all others
(Haugen, 1987). For the Indian half of the population it can
also be said that a state of diglossia exists, in that there is a
clear distinction between the use of the Indian language at home
and in one's ethnic community, and the Spanish language in all
official, business, and contact with the outside world.
Association of North American Radio Clubs
DXer of the Year for 1995.